tt4t_065 Stupid parlor tricks and looking forward to next year

It’s Saturday, November 29th, 2008 and welcome to episode 65 of TechTalk4Teachers, I’m Tom Grissom. I had the chance to take the week off this week for Thanksgiving break and the time sure has flown by. I had to catch-up on several household chores including getting the home place ready for winter. As the years go by there is a routine that we establish with the coming and going of the seasons. Now that the fields are harvested and the trees have lost their leaves, we are settling in for the long winter ahead here in Illinois.

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Technology also ebbs and flows with a similar technological development cycle that we become accustomed to over the years. Soon it will be January and we will be looking forward to the Consumer Electronics Show and Macworld where vendors unveil their latest wares for the coming year. There is always something new on the horizon and this can be frustrating for users who want to buy the latest technologies now but know full well that in six months to a year there will be new and improved models with more features and often costing less money. Such is the price of progress.

Over Thanksgiving break I have had the opportunity to do more research on up-and-coming technologies and find myself in a similarly frustrating position, the next improved model is just out of my reach. I know it is coming but it is not yet here and budget cycles now require purchases.

The past year has witnessed the netbook craze and there seems no slacking off in the coming year. New touch-screen models are rumored on the near horizon and new features in Microsoft’s new Windows 7 operating system are teasing users with increased reliability, functionality, and speed including multi-touch capability that I believe will have great uses in education. All of this innovation with PC prices continuing to drop.

HP came out with the tx2 notebook this month and it is advertised as the first consumer notebook with multi-touch capability. While technically not a netbook the tx2 has a swivel mount that is similar to other HP Tablet PC models but now you can use your fingers instead of a stylus to control applications on the tx2 screen using the multi-touch capability.

HP has also had the Touch Smart, an all-in-one touch-screen model, out for some time now and ASUS, the makers of the popular eee PC netbooks, have recently announced a new line of all-in-one low-cost computers that they are calling the eee top. The exciting thing for educators is that the new netbook and eee top models are approximately half the costs of the more traditional notebooks and all-in-one computer offerings from other manufacturers. There is a huge battle going on between these low-cost devices and the more traditional and more powerful laptop categories. The jury is still out as to if the netbooks will continue to be the hot sellers that they currently are next year.

I have provided links to the HP Touch Smart, the HP tx2 notebook, and the new eee top models in the show notes if you are interested in learning more about these particular models.

HP Touch Smart all-in-one Computer
http://www.hp.com/united-states/campaigns/touchsmart/#/Main/

HP tx2 Notebook Computer with Multi-touch
http://www.hp.com/united-states/campaigns/touchsmart/notebook/buy.html

ASUS eee top all-in-one multi-touch computer
http://www.engadget.com/2008/11/02/asus-finally-details-et1602-et1603-eee-top-all-in-one-pcs/

In these tight economic times schools need to consider their purchases carefully and give consideration to lower cost alternatives that may not have the horsepower of the traditional full-fledged computers but that can still fulfill educational requirements and do so more economically. When you can buy two to three netbooks for the price of a single traditional laptop, then the bean counters start paying attention.

Of course it depends upon the ultimate purpose you are wanting to use the laptop for but for the majority of classroom activities the netbooks are more than adequate for routine classroom tasks. The biggest complaint is the small size keyboard of netbooks but for children this may actually be an advantage. For adults that need to use a larger keyboard you can simply plug-in a full-sized USB keyboard when you need to type for extended periods of time. Because many netbooks use the energy saving Intel Atom series of processors heavy users of video and photo editing applications will be disappointed in performance of current netbooks but for those that need a general purpose computer the low-cost netbook category may continue to be a big hit with educators.


Technology Pick of the Week

Since this was holiday break here in the States my Technology Pick of the Week this week is on the fun-side of things. I will classify this pick as in the category of “Stupid Parlor Tricks” At the IETC conference last week Hall Davidson gave a demo of Photo Booth and used a green card to create a chroma key image and then used a green card to “peer inside the human brain” using a webcam when he held the green card up to his head. Of course all that was needed was a background image of the human brain that could be keyed upon using the green card to create the see inside the head effect.

Many Cam - Webcam Special Effects Program
http://www.manycam.com/

Chroma keying has been around for years and it can create some interesting effects if you use your imagination and creativity. I downloaded and installed a free application called Many Cam on an eee PC netbook running Windows XP this week while I was off from work. Many Cam is one of those fun little applications that is good for a lot of novelty effects and can leave many wondering, “How did he do that?” It can be used with chroma keying to place yourself on screen in whatever setting you select as your background image. So if you are longing for the Florida beaches no problem, just find the appropriate themed background image and you can place yourself on a sunny beach.

The advantage of Many Cam is that you can also use it with other webcam programs like Skype and some instant messaging applications that support video. Did I mention it is free! Of course the challenge becomes to use this novel webcam application for an educational purpose beyond amusement. Educators need to get beyond the toy mentality approach and focus on using the technological tools with a clear purpose and intent to improve learning.

A couple of years ago or so Logitech came out with similar software that supported avatars that you could use with their webcams. Logitech had a shark, an alien, and a princess among other avatars. When I first saw the Logitech software I thought it would be a great application to do some remote video conferencing with schools. Schools can have guest readers that can use an avatar to disguise their real identity and select an avatar to represent a character in a story that is read to the class from the characters perspective virtually. For example the Princess avatar could read Snow White with the Princess avatars image projected on a large screen in the front of the room.

Logitech Video Effects and Avatars
http://www.logitech.com/index.cfm/webcam_communications/video_software_services/video_effects/&cl=us,en?WT.ac=ps3294

This activity would have to be planned with the teacher but I do believe that the technology is now affordable enough and sophisticated enough that some schools could start hosting period and character authentic avatars that students could interact with and ask questions of as if they were time traveling back or forward in time to the location of the story or event.

Of course you need to pick age appropriate avatars and use educationally sound practices when creating such lessons. Using a Shark avatar with little children could be a bit frightening for the children and an inappropriate use of this technology. The beauty of using an avatar in this manner is that there is a real person on the other side of the camera that can take and answer questions from the perspective of that character.

There still remain some technical hurdles to overcome. I still run into firewall issues and bandwidth problems with schools that are using video streaming technologies but it is getting better and there are fewer barriers than there were just a few years ago. How about you? If you are using webcams in the classroom for educational purpose I would love to hear from you and have you share your experiences with the TechTalk4Teachers audience.

That wraps it up for episode 65 of TechTalk4Teachers. Show notes for this episode and archived episodes are available on the web at the EIU Instructional Technology website at www.eiu.edu/itc just click on the TechTalk4Teachers podcast link. If you have a comment or suggestion please send an email to techtalk@eiu.edu of leave a comment on the TechTalk4Teachers blog. Until next time, this is Tom Grissom, keep on Learning.

tt4t_064 IETC Conference, we have been here before

It’s Sunday, November 23rd, 2008 and welcome to episode 64 of TechTalk4Teachers, I’m Tom Grissom. This past Thursday and Friday I had the opportunity to attend the Illinois Educational Technology Conference in Springfield, Illinois. While attending I met to a lot of old friends and also made some new friends at this years event. Some of my older friendships go back more than twenty years and it was good to see many of my colleagues from those early days of my career.

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Vicki Davis, also known as the CoolCatTeacher, gave the Keynote address Thursday afternoon and talked about some of the Web 2.0 tools available and how some pioneers are now using these technologies to establish relationships with classrooms all over the world. As she was giving her keynote I couldn’t help but to reflect back on many of the technologies that I had witnessed over the years. I had the strange sense of deja vu all over again. Vicki uses blogs in her classroom whereas teachers not so long ago teachers relied upon email and BBS’s to do similar things. I remembered back in the early to mid 1980’s that many of the teachers of that time also established connections worldwide that were made possible by the technologies of the day just as teachers are doing today. Granted we did not have high-speed Internet connections and free video conferencing tools like Skype, ooVoo, Qik, uStream, and other streaming video services back then, but it did happen, just in different ways. Teachers always find a way to take advantage of new technologies to benefit learning.

Back then people developed their own modem driven BBS (Bulletin Board Systems) around areas of interests using a regular dial-up phone line. This was more on the hobbyist level but when the Internet became mainstream in the mid 1990’s and the technologies evolved further we thought we were in heaven when some of the first webcam software like CU-SeeMe came along. Usenet groups and other fledgling Internet technologies were used by many teachers back then, before Google there was Gopher. This was back in the days of 33Kbps modems and it sort of kind of worked if you crossed your fingers in just the right way. 33 Kbps modems seemed scorchingly fast for those that had previously used 300 to 1200 baud modems a few years earlier. By no means were the 33 Kbps connections reliable enough or fast enough for mission critical educational applications that a teacher could count on everyday but it was possible to have two-way low-cost communication between schools and many teachers did use these technologies despite their limitations.

Today there are only a few technical challenges remaining. If the average teacher wants to establish a connection between schools they have many choices. The good news is that today the tools are easier than ever to use and often free for teachers use. Setting up a blog or wiki can be done in under five minutes by the average teacher.

The technologies have matured and most of the problems are not about the technology itself but rather stem from firewall issues that schools and businesses use to protect their networks. Webcams and video conferencing are opening up new possibilities for use in the classroom. Add to this the portability of cell phone cameras and sites like Qik streaming services and it is now possible to stream live video to an Internet server and broadcast the feed live to the world in real time. We have come a long way in a short period of time. Now we must ask ourselves what is the best way to harness this new found power?

Unfortunately bandwidth issues may still limit the possible uses that many teachers would like to implement, especially on a larger scale that will truly make a difference. Bandwidth is becoming the life blood of cloud computing and those that do not invest in the bandwidth necessary to take advantage of cloud computing services will be left behind and this will create a new digital divide. Schools must invest in high-speed connections to the Internet or run the risk of falling behind and isolating their schools.

I am not worried as much about the bandwidth issues as I am with the policy side of the equation. Bandwidth issues are known and can be addressed and solved with appropriating funding in the right areas. The more challenging aspects of using cloud computing services in most schools more likely have to do with policy issues of allowing teachers and students to utilize this technology. We need guidelines and best practices to help teachers comfortably use these technologies in the classroom and reduce the barriers for teachers that want to take advantage of the technological benefits. These technologies can make for wonderful possibilities for educators but they also unfortunately can be misused. This misuse often overshadows the benefits and sometimes keeps promising practices from occurring in schools.

Safety is always in the front of the line for teachers and administrators and concerns over the safety and privacy of students need to be addressed, especially for the new technologies like webcams and cell phone cameras as they are increasingly finding their way into schools. If these new tools are to be used in the classroom their use requires careful and purposeful use by teachers for the benefit of learning.

As with any technology webcams and cell phones can be abused and unfortunately some organizations do not allow their use because of this potential abuse. Teachers, administrators, parents, and students need to work together to create policies that support the appropriate use of technologies so that these tools can be safely used in the classroom.

If these new tools are not supported at the administrative level then these technologies are unlikely to be used by those teachers that see the potential they hold for learning. We have hundreds of pages of standards for teachers, students, and administrators and now it is time that we have a conversation at the State and national level about effective policies, guidelines, and best practices to address the possibilities that Web 2.0 and cloud computing services offer educators.

Technology Pick of the Week

My Technology Pick of the Week this week is Google Earth. If you have not checked out Google Earth for a while I suggest you download the latest beta version and give it a try. Currently Google Earth is at the Beta Version 4.3 level. On Friday at the IETC conference Hall Davidson from the Discovery Network gave the keynote conference address at lunch. Hall talked a lot about using technologies to engage students in technology-driven project based learning, something many educators have been doing for many years. Hall Davidson also presented a couple of sessions on Google Earth and highlighted some of the new features.

Google Earth does require a download of the Google Earth client and does require an Internet connection to utilize this software. If you do not have an Internet connection you can use Google Earth but it only uses the data that has been cached into your computers memory. In my experience the pop-up messages that occur when not connected to the Internet almost render this application useless so take my advice and only use Google Earth when you are connected to the Internet.

When you use Google Earth you will see three main categories on the left-side of the screen labeled Search, Places, and Layers. For a quick-start sample to see what Google Earth can do select the Search category and then select the Directions Tab. Enter a From location and a To location. When you click on the Play Tour button (it looks like a triangle) on the player and Google Earth will do a fly-over movie of the route you entered in the From and To fields, pretty cool! A link is provided in the show notes to a short movie about Google Earth and other resources for you to learn more about this application.

Google Earth Resources
http://earth.google.com/tour.html

To me the power of Google Earth for teachers and students is in the ability to go to the Places category and insert your own Placemark pins in Google Earth. Placemarks can be connected to text information providing a detailed description about the pinned location, pictures about the location, movies about the location, or a referenced website about the location pinned on the Google Earth map. These Placemarks can be saved in KML and KMZ files that can be shared with other users of Google Earth. KML and KMZ files are simply the file format that Google Earth uses, just like a .doc file is used by Microsoft Word.

An excellent example of using Placemarks for a lesson can be found at the Google LitTrips website, a link is provided in the show notes.

Google LitTrips
http://www.googlelittrips.org/

Please note that you do have to install Google Earth first before you can use the files at Google LitTrips. When you visit the Google LitTrips site and you will see at the top of the webpage an index that you can choose by the grade level of content you are searching for. For example, I clicked on the high school 9-12 level link and selected the Grapes of Wrath LitTrip and saved the file to my computer. Once the file was downloaded I unzipped the downloaded file by double-clicking on it and then clicked on the KML file that was extracted. When I double-clicked on this KML file it opened in Google Earth. I was able to see all of the Placemarks that the author of the KML file created from within Google Earth, in this case the route of the story from Grapes of Wrath with Placemarks along the way explaining what happened in the book at each marked Placemark.

Creating KML and KMZ files is really not that difficult and if you know the basics of creating a webpage and how to copy and paste code then you can easily create Google Earth trips, better yet show your students how to create these Placemarks and let them create their own Google Earth trips! If you have not tried out Google Earth please give it a try and let me know what you think.

I am incorporating Google Earth into some of the Smart Board training that I am doing as I believe that the combination of the two are a great way to showcase these two technologies together. There is also something visceral about manipulating map objects with your hands at the Smart Board that makes the learning experience more interactive and effective. Controlling the Google Earth controls with the Smart Board is easy and intuitive. If you are interested in learning more about Google Earth please let me know and I will discuss this technology in more detail in the future if there is an interest. Google Earth has a lot of educational potential in this free application for teachers.

That wraps it up for episode 64 of TechTalk4Teachers. Show notes for this episode and archived episodes are available on the web at the EIU Instructional Technology Center website at www.eiu.edu/itc just click on the Techtalk4Teachers Podcast link. If you have a comment of suggestion please send an email to techtalk@eiu.edu or leave a comment on the TechTalk4Teachers blog. Until next time, this is Tom Grissom, keep on learning.

tt4t_063 Flipping out over the Flip camera and a new choice

It’s Saturday, November 15th, 2008 and welcome to episode 63 of TechTalk4Teachers, I’m Tom Grissom. Well it has been another busy week around here and we have accomplished much. Yesterday morning the ITC was buzzing with activity. We were blessed with the presence of 50 third graders and their teachers from Project WOW. Each semester Project WOW teams up with two local third grade classrooms and a group of EIU preservice teachers that work together on a thematic unit as part of course requirements for one of our teacher education classes.

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Project WOW is a great partnership and everyone that participates benefits from this collaboration. Yesterday we recorded the basic segments for an audio podcast that each of the 12 teams is responsible for producing. This year the topic is 19th Century Heros and I will probably have a future TechTalk4Teachers episode about this project as it gets further along so stay tuned as we continue to work on this collaborative effort. Being a teacher I was searching for period appropriate copyright free music for the students to use in their podcasts and had to chuckle when the 3rd graders went straight for the hip hop genre for their intro and outro music, sounds like we will be having some interesting podcasts to listen to in the near future.

My main topic today is about the amazing Flip video cameras that have become a very popular checkout item at the ITC. Some time ago the ITC ordered 16 of the Flip cameras to use for class projects and for general faculty use. Recently I have been promoting their use more and more, so much so that we are now having trouble keeping enough of them in stock at the ITC for checkout use. The popularity of technology equipment checkouts is always a good sign that you are on the right track and one of those “good” problems to have. Of course we need to address this “good” problem so the purchase of more Flip video cameras may be in future ITC equipment purchases.

If we do purchase additional Flip cameras we have a new choice. There is a new model of Flip camera recently available called the minoHD or minoHD, I have heard it pronounced both ways. I prefer to call it the mino because it reminds me of a minnow, a minnow is a little fish and this camera is a little smaller than the current Flip Ultra model. Regardless of the pronunciation this camera offers some impressive features and is on my wish list as I look to purchase more Flip cameras to meet the checkout demand at the ITC. I have provided a link in the show notes to the Flip website with specifications of each camera model. It can get a little confusing as there are two models of the mino so read the specifications carefully for each model.

http://www.theflip.com/products_flip_ultra_specs.II.shtml

The biggest upgrade for the minoHD is that it is capable of shooting video in 720p HD quality video. It also has a built-in battery instead of the replaceable AA batteries that the Flip Ultra model has. The 720p video quality is tempting from the MinoHD as the quality will be a big improvement over the current 640x480 resolution of the other Flip models. The minoHD can shoot in 1280x720 wide-screen format. This improvement however is not without the cost of increased files sizes of the raw video footage so there is a trade-off. If there is a weakness to the Flip cameras it has to be the quality of the sound that is recorded. I hope the new minoHD camera has improved sound capability, a jack to plug-in an external microphone would be a great addition in future models.

I am not sure about the practicality of the built-in battery either. The Flip website states that the mino models get about two to four hours of use per charge. Let me explain why a built-in battery may not be an advantage. Both the Ultra and Mino models advertise about one hour of video storage on the devices before having to save the video to a computer and delete the video files off the camera so you can continue shooting. If you are in the field and the battery runs out all you have to do is replace the AA batteries in the Flip Ultra models but you would have to find an electrical outlet to recharge the built-in battery of the mino models. The Flip website also states that it takes between two to three hours to recharge the minoHD. If the built-in battery is replaceable and you can buy extras to swap out that would solve this issue. I need to get a review model in to test out and answer these questions for myself.

If the built-in battery is not replaceable then at some point after many charges the batteries will eventually die rendering the camera useless. The built-in battery will also require a cable to plug-in for charging so imagine having 20 flip video cameras plugged into surge protectors charging, tangled cords everywhere! At least with the AA battery models you can buy rechargeable charging stations that are compact in size and easy to use. These are the types of details that I worry about when considering supporting technologies on a larger scale for classroom use.

In the ITC we are in the trenches of providing front-line technology support to faculty, staff, and students. We need bullet-proof technologies and practicality often trumps some of the latest innovations. Anybody can buy one unit and it is easy to manage just one but when you increase that by a factor of 20 or 100 then you need a plan for supporting this volume of equipment. Teachers know this and unless you are a teacher you probably do not understand the problems that scaling up can have upon the practicality of any project.

For teachers these details and issues are important considerations. If we use technologies in the classroom we need for them to be reliable and easy-to-use. Paying attention to the mundane details like battery life and the size of files produced has a direct impact upon the practicality of the camera for classroom use. The important point is that we want a no hassle factor for faculty and students that want to use classroom technologies so these details are important. Standardization is also part of this consideration because if a faculty member wants to checkout a camera from the ITC it is very frustrating to them if they get a different model for every checkout. Standardizing on the Flips has helped by having a consistent choice for checkouts. When you standardize the price point is also an important consideration as per unit costs can really impact the budget. Savings of just a few dollars quickly add up when you need to buy in volume to stretch your budget dollars during these tight financial times.

The Flip Ultra camera model can now be found with educational pricing of under $150 and the MinoHD model for under $200 so both of these cameras are affordable for classroom use. Not so long ago we were using $500-$1000 video cameras with mini-DV tapes for video taping classroom projects. The Flip cameras are not as high-quality as traditional mini-DV cameras but their lower price has finally made them affordable enough for the average classroom. Not having to digitize mini-DV tapes is also another huge plus.

The other advantage to lower costs is that you may not be as worried about handing a Flip camera to a 3rd grader to use as you might be with more expensive cameras. In the end keeping it simple and practical is important and the Flip video cameras have met this challenge at the ITC to date.

If you are considering video projects with your students be sure to follow your organizations policies and procedures including obtaining any necessary permission forms and follow your organization’s guidelines about the use of video for classroom projects.

Technology Pick of the Week

My Technology Pick of the Week this week is a website I ran across a couple of weeks ago that was interesting to look at on November 5th, 2008 the day after elections in the United States. The name of this website is the Today’s Front Pages and this website as of Saturday, November 15, 2008 has 613 front pages from 60 countries around the world. A link is provided in the show notes.

Today’s Front Pages
http://www.newseum.org/todaysfrontpages/

The nice thing about this site is that you can see thumbnail images for all the front pages of newspapers for a particular day as well as have access to archives from previous days. The front pages can be sorted alphabetically by state or by region. Since I was a former science teacher I would like to point out a page that caught my eye as I visited this site today. I clicked on a link from front page of the Stuart News from Stuart, Florida about the Space Shuttle launch last night. Night-time launches are spectacular and if you click on the link in the show notes you can see a beautiful picture from last night’s Shuttle Launch, absolutely spectacular.

Night-Time Space Shuttle Launch from The Stuart News: Stuart, Florida
http://www.newseum.org/todaysfrontpages/hr.asp?fpVname=FL_SN&ref_pge=gal&b_pge=3

Using newspapers in the classroom periodically can help keep variety in the learning experience as well as offer a teachable moment for discussions about the way the news is reported in different parts of the world. Please checkout Today’s Front Pages and I am sure you will find valuable learning resources and ideas to use in future lessons.

That wraps it up for episode 63 of TechTalk4Teachers. Show notes for this episode and archived episodes are available on the web at the EIU Instructional Technology Center website at www.eiu.edu/itc just click on the Techtalk4Teachers Podcast link. If you have a comment of suggestion please send an email to techtalk@eiu.edu or leave a comment on the TechTalk4Teachers blog. Until next time, this is Tom Grissom, keep on learning.

tt4t_062 Time to cleanup some delicious bookmarks

It's Saturday, November 8th, 2008 and welcome to episode 62 of TechTalk4Teachers, I’m Tom Grissom. If you are like me you probably have a lot of extra resources lying around and in a state of disrepair and begging to be organized in some form or fashion. If only there were enough time I would love to get some of these resources better organized. Way back on episode 12 of TechTalk4Teachers I talked about the social bookmarking site called delicious. At that time and until recently we had to use the rather clumsy website address of del.icio.us to access delicious bookmarks but as reported in episode 50 the delicious website has finally changed its web address to the more user friendly delicious.com and added some new features along the way.

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Before delicious came around I actually wrote a php script I called share-a –link that allowed me and other students to fill out a form and access an online database for links that could be shared with others. So when I found out about delicious a few years ago I jumped at the opportunity to use this free service from Yahoo. It was like my share-a-link script but so much more.

I love the delicious social bookmarking service for several reasons, first of course, is that it is free! Free is one of those keywords that we teachers appreciate. Secondly the delicious service allows for anyone with a delicious account to add bookmarks that are stored and accessed online for future reference. Third is that delicious bookmarks can be accessed from any computer with an Internet connection. Fourth is that you can see what other delicious users have bookmarked and therefore learn a lot from the work of others. Finally one of the best features of delicious is the ability to “tag” websites with keywords that allows you to easily sort related bookmarks by a tagged keyword.

Teachers can benefit by using the delicious service to bookmark sites by keyword for a particular course or unit of study. You can use more than one tag per entry if a website might have several uses for you. The important thing is that your tags should be short and descriptive and you must be consistent with whatever tag naming convention you develop. For example when I find a website that is a good candidate for use with a smart board I will tag it with the keyword smartboard and iwb. I use the smartboard keyword because that is the descriptive name that most teachers are familiar with but I also use the tag iwb, that stands for interactive white board, because this tag reminds me that the particular site I am bookmarking is interactive and could also be used with other brands of interactive white boards besides Smart. I might also add additional tags like third grade or science to further define what the smartboard website is about.

With the recent revamping of the delicious website delicious users have some new features including better sorting options and sharing options including the ability to embed delicious bookmarks into other websites and blogs in the form of a tag cloud.

Now I have had my old delicious account called gtgrissom for some time now it has become a bit of a mess. Learning is messy and I am not the best organizer in the world so my delicious list has grown a little out of control for this account. I try to model best practices to the best of my ability so I recently created another delicious account to be used in conjuction with the Instructional Technology Center website. I will glean many of my bookmarks from the older gtgrissom account but I am going to be much more selective with what I tag and try to have a more minimalist approach to the eiuitc delicious account.

Displaying your bookmarks in the form of tag clouds is an easy way for others to quickly find tag related information. Tags are weighted and therefore as the number of entries a particular keyword tag has there will be a corresponding increase in the size of the font to display the tag. In other words the larger the size font of the tag the more entries that particular tag has. You have undoubtedly seen tag clouds on websites as they are becoming more and more common. I have embedded my eiuitc delicous tag cloud into the TechTalk4Teachers website if you would like to see an example. Please remember this is a work in progress and the nice thing about using the embed code is that this blog website will automatically be updated as I add new links to the eiuitc delicious account.

eiuitc delicious tag cloud example:




What about you? Do you have any tips and tricks about using social bookmarking in the classroom? If you do please leave a comment in the TechTalk4Teachers blog so we can share with others.

Technology Pick of the Week

My Technology Pick of the Week this week is a Web 2.0 service that may be of help to you when you want to print out just a selective piece of a website. The name of this service is called Print What You Like and a link is provided in the show notes.

http://printwhatyoulike.com/

To use this service copy the web address of the website you want to selectively print and then go to the printwhatyoulike website. Paste the web address into the box that says Enter a URL to Start and then press the Start button.

You can then move the mouse around to different sections of the webpage and click on the sections you want to printout. Use the control panel on the left-hand side to control the area you want to print. This could save a few trees so give it a try and let me know what you think.

That wraps it up for episode 62 of TechTalk4Teachers. Show notes
for this episode and archived episodes are available on the web at the EIU Instructional Technology Center website at www.eiu.edu/itc just click on the Techtalk4Teachers Podcast link. If you have a comment of suggestion please send and email to techtalk@eiu.edu or leave a comment on the TechTalk4Teachers blog. Until next time, this is Tom Grissom, keep on learning.